The subject matter of fees to be paid by students, in public universities, is something of grave concern for Kenya. The advocates of free education argue that raising the tuition fee will alienate poor students from achieving their educational dreams in tertiary institutions. But I sympathize with them as well as I empathize with public universities because of the skewed ill-thought education policies that Kenya is pursuing, worse with all the disregard of supposed high handedness in the management of public universities as was claimed by UASU-UON Chapter.
Lack of capitation by the government to universities has seriously undermined the quality of education. Universities have become even worse than secondary schools in some instances. Instead of universities expending much of their income on research and development of knowledge, expanding the capacity of the students to be creative in resolving socio-cultural, economic, technological and scientific problems in Kenya, for the benefit of national development, they have become centers of students passing through some institution to get a paper called a degree that they have no idea what it entails. The sole aim is to ensure universities stay afloat by the meager fees paid by students to the detriment of their own education partly due to other concerns beyond their control.
While in general people appreciate free primary and secondary education, I categorically reject them not because they are a loss to the accruing of social benefit in society, but I do perceive them as a product of mediocrity in their conceptualization based on populist overtures by political class in Kenya. To expand the free education in Kenya is not a question of stock-piling pupils and students into classes, but it must be done in consideration of quality education with specific needs for the nation being objectively addressed in the curriculum regardless of education level. Where it has been proclaimed access to basic education is free and compulsory in Kenya, the allocation of resources to support the education system is horribly low whose resultant net effect is poor quality education.
I dispute this universal approach to free education in Kenya based on two fundamental grounds, government’s inability to provide adequate resources, they need not even be sufficient, and poor conceptualization and implementation of the whole process. There is a discord between basic education and tertiary education in terms of curriculum content and resources to support the enterprise of public education in Kenya.
In six to ten years from now, Kenyan universities may lack scholarly credibility on the international academic arena. I base my fear on the grounds that the same mediocrity of 100% transition to poor quality education in secondary will land students to universities who are least prepared to face the rigors of university education. To cut a long story short, with secondary schools already stretched resource-wise, and some teachers saying they are only teaching to get a salary and forgot matters pertaining quality, students who are delivered to universities and other tertiary institutions in future may be academically deficient of the qualifications and capacity for higher education pursuits on technical grounds
Consider that the same phenomenon in universities currently, they lack capitation, highly stretched, public universities forgot their key objectives of developing human capacity and development of new knowledge through research for national development, to mere peddlers of degrees at the cost of financial survival. Issues of quality has been replaced by the objective of getting high numbers of students just to stay afloat whether that degree is bogus or not. Reason? People have to be paid salaries and students crowded into lecture halls. In relation to this fact, hard as it may, unpopular as my stand may be, VCs of public universities must rise to the occasion and challenge the government to increase the fees paid by students in public universities. Students must not condemn university institutions for this quagmire, if it becomes a sad eventuality, otherwise they will get papers called degrees without content in the long term.
The general public should be aware that the pandemic of graft places entire government operations and social welfare projects such as education in peril. The loss of public resources to the gods of corruption is far beyond the minimum funds required to run public universities. This feasibly denies students the Godly chance to continue paying very little fees while keeping the universities afloat, thus, maintain the institutions’ capacities to provide quality education and undertake major research studies for the benefit of socio-economic, technological and scientific development for the nation called Kenya.
If the government does not want to increase capitation to universities to adequate levels, then it either allows the VCs to increase fees or close the universities until when there is enough funds to meaningfully run them. That is where the general public will appreciate what mega scandals are causing them in tax losses that would have developed the education sector right from basic education to tertiary levels.
This is my argument, there is no need of producing large numbers of people with degrees who have no theoretical and practical understanding of what they have in a degree. This is due to poor educational foundation that is devoid of quality in the intellectual development of students through the public education system. This problem is compounded by inadequate resources due to under-funding to public learning institutions. It is better to be prudent and produce a less number of qualified human personnel with the capacity to drive forward the socioeconomic agenda of the country than a multitude of graduates who have no capacities for sucha noble national objective.
I therefore urge principles of secondary schools, and VCs of public universities, to seek legal ways to advance the cause of quality education by raising enough funds if the government is not willing line the coffers of public learning facilities and institutions with enough funds to meet their objectives as enshrined in Vision 2030 agenda, which is just 11 years away. That is not enough time of a century to keep expectations on the runway, and through action of quality education, that flight should be off without funding hitches and glitches.
majorelazia 